Minneota to operate EMR service
“Based on all the figures, it’s the committee’s recommendation to the Minneota City Council that we give back our license to the state, not renew as of January our operation with Memorial and we’d go with adopting a first responder crew in Minneota,” said Mayor John Rolbiecki.
While this would be an EMR (emergency responder, one who can stabilize but not treat or transport) only service, it would still be North Memorial’s job to operate a Basic or Advanced service to the area with technicians or EMTs (technicians are able to treat and transport patients).
Earlier, North Memorial indicated they no longer would staff an EMR crew in Minneota due to inability to retain employees. Minneota was paying North Memorial just under $18,000 a year to operate the service.
Now, the council is estimating it will cost them about $35,000 a year to staff and operate the EMR service. The council has not adopted this option but will deal with it at their next meeting.
Mayor Rolbiecki made it clear all the details of the EMR operation, including a budget, have NOT been set at this time.
That will come AFTER the council officially adopts the EMR program. About 25 people turned out to hear the proposal by the Minneota City Council to keep an ambulance service in Minneota.
However, several members of the audience were, ironically, “paged” to respond to an emergency.
The committee studying the problem was composed of township and city officials, fire personnel and other represented parties.
“We conducted two meetings. We meet collectively with North Ambulance to go over options as to what our future options are and then we met with just the committee (without North Memorial) to discuss some of those options,” said Mayor Rolbiecki.
The mayor told the audience, what it came down to for options and the costs included:
1. North would cover 24-hour on premises call, with a subsidy from the service area (city and townships), that subsidy was $400,014. The subsidy now paying North is $17,405.
2. An on-call basis at $217,000 to provide the service. 3. The Minneota service area would fall under the Marshall service area. Marshall would have to adopt that and the state board would have to agree to do that and North would staff anywhere from eight to 10 hours.
“We looked at an eight and 10-hour option and there is a lot of unknowns with that option,” said the mayor. The figure given for this option was between $108,000 to $140,000. 4. Start a city EMR service.
“Basically those were the four options available to us. In discussion with the committee the recommendation was that the city would take over the ambulance.”
“The decision has not been made (by the council). First we wanted to have a hearing and get feedback from the public,” said Mayor Rolbiecki.
“The city and the service area, the other responding areas are committed to a first responder crew.
We have a number of volunteers ready to go. We have the cost to provide training for those individuals,” said Mayor Rolbiecki.
The city advertised for EMRs and have about 19 people responding. As for the cost of the new service the mayor said, “A preliminary budget has been passed for the city. There is a substantial increase in the city budget.
The budget does have a 44 percent increase for the ambulance for this coming year — assuming that’s the way we go.”
He also said Minneota has an agreement with neighboring responding services. “They’ve all agreed to do what they can to help us get started,” said Rolbiecki. He added, “We feel we’ll be able to implement it fairly quickly.”
From the audience, Jerry Bottelberghe asked if the city can ever get back it’s license once it’s gone. “Once it’s gone, it’s unlikely it would come back,” was the mayor’s response. Once Minneota has its own EMR service, it’s likely some of the coverage area will be divided up among surrounding community services.
“Minneota will likely fall north in Marshall. Other townships could fall with other areas like Canby,” he said. In the audience, Royal Hettling indicated the coverage area included about 152 square miles.
Mayor Rolbiecki responded, “The service area is very large.” He indicated the board will sit down with all area ambulance services and split up the territory, if that’s deemed necessary.
“First, the council has to move on it and then we’ll put the details in place,” he added. According to the mayor, “If we have a first responder crew, we’ll have a director that’s in charge of the staff, scheduling and filling in all the blanks.” “Would the first responders be city employees?” was the question asked.
“That’s to be determined. I would assume yes, since the city is taking the lead on it. I would anticipate that is how it would go,” said Mayor Rolbiecki. He indicated there would be a first responder training course in town well in advance of the January deadline (when North Memorial is finished serving Minneota).
“There are still a lot of things to put in place but I don’t think the training would be an issue,” said the mayor. As for an ambulance to operate in Minneota, the Mayor said, “In 2007, we signed over the assets to North and they can be bought back for a dollar. We’d get a rig,” he said.
“The contract favored North substantially but the contract was not well done. The city will get some ambulance. How it sorts out in the long run remains to be seen,” said City Attorney John Engels.
“My position is you ought to get back the ambulance that was here,” said Attorney Engels.
“The current EMRs are the employees of North,” said Mayor Rolbiecki. As to those employees working for Minneota, Rolbecki said, “I don’t know what North would or wouldn’t allow.”
Details as to how it would operate and what would happen if the city takes it over are not known at this time. “We’re not going to let it flounder,” said Minneota City Administrator Shirley Teigland.
“We have the support of the following first responders for training, setup and help in the short term,” said Mayor Rolbiecki.
“But the specifics have not been hammered out because we haven’t made a decision to move on it,” the mayor said. “There will still be an ambulance service until we get started … it may come from Marshall, it may come from Canby, but there will be a service,” said Mayor Rolbiecki.
He added, “What we’ve penciled in is to spend about 44 percent higher next year, anticipating training, etc. What it will cost is a big question mark,” he added. “There are a lot of question marks, until we get down the road it’s somewhat of an unknown.” Pagers and radios are another expense that will have to be considered.
“People feel we’re losing our ambulance, but when you step back and look at it you don’t see much change in service (from North),” Rolbiecki said to North Memorial First Responder Emily Coequyt. “I don’t see the community suffering,” Coequyt said. “I threw out numbers that are staggering. The cheapest scenario is to do a sub-station here,” said the mayor.
“Any increase and we’d have to increase the tax levy,” said the mayor. “That will be a direct impact to your property taxes. Just the ambulance alone is about a 15 percent increase to your property taxes.” When asked, “Will coverage area be the same?” the mayor responded, “We don’t know yet.” The next step is for the council to adopt the new service — then the details are expected to fall into place.